Q/A in Dhaka

Hey friends, I am currently in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, after a long day of traveling yesterday by bus and ferry. Today is my first Sabbath on outreach, so I will sit down and try to answer some of your questions…

Is Sam doing OK? Sam is doing great! I have done more ministry and teaching this last week then I have done in my entire life. I preached twice last week; once at a Sunday service and one at convention...both times I preached the gospel; the first time concentrating on Rom 1-3 that all are sinful and in need of salvation - and teh second from Romans 5 Adam/Jesus - from one man came sin and death to all man kind, but from one man came grace and life to all mankind. God is totally hooking us up though and blessing everything we put our hand to. Two days ago I went with a pastor of an AOG church to a village that he has a small church plant in. Many people are accepting Christ (already 30 families!) and I met a man and his family who just the other day had been beaten for converting to Christianity. Though there is much opposition to the gospel here, God is one the move!

How are the living conditions? The living conditions change almost every week! I have never traveled this much in my life! Sean C (a friend from Fiji DTS) has been the biggest blessing! I have an India and Bangladesh SIM card for a cell phone that David Bandi gave me, which makes traveling much easier, because every location we go to Sean gives us contacts to pick us up and arrange ministry and places to stay. We are currently staying in a VERY nice place in Dhaka city a guest house of the Church of the Nazarene. We have AC! ahhhhhh amazing!

Are our prayers being effective? Yes! I have never experienced this much favor from the Lord before! Time after time we have seen him miraculously put things together better than we could have planned! Every city we go to there are people to come pick us up and help us out. Today a Korean lady took us shopping; yesterday a Bengali man drove two hours and picked us up from our bus...etc...

What are you doing for outreach? Last week we held two two-day pastors seminars for about 30 pastors a piece. The first day we taught Bible overview - teaching the pastors the major steps and hand motions for all of God's plan's of redemption from Gen-Rev; and then the next day we taught the Inductive Method through the book of Philemon. We are also preaching everywhere we go. This week we are doing mercy ministry with a group of YWAM called IPHC (introduction to primary heal care). We are doing mercy ministry half the day and studying for teaching Kings the other half. Next week we will be teaching the book of Kings to an SBS in Dhaka city. Then we will be leading a YWAM staff retreat for about 30 YWAM staff in Bangladesh teaching them the Inductive Method of Bible study for 5 days (5 hours of teaching each day). After that we will return to India and do a week of ministry in Kolkatta (undecided exactly what) then take a 2 day train to Pune and help lead the seminar of the School of Biblical studies starting in September. After that our outreach will be over, but Russell and I will continue to do ministry and have lots of exciting things planned...

Is there anything specific that we can pray about other than the general stuff? Asian culture really respects age...so it can be intimidating to be teaching the Bible to pastors when we are in our early twenties. So please pray what Paul instructed to Timothy in his first letter..."do not be ashamed of your youth, but continue to set an example for all believers..." Please pray for the people we are teaching, they are here for the long haul. Bangladesh is only .03% Christian! Please pray that I would be a doer of the word (James 1:21) and that obedience would be the center of my ministry. Pray for spiritual and physical protection - the enemy does not want us here and he defiantly doesn't want the long term workers to understand the Bible better!

Have you found a Bengali woman yet? No...please continue to pray for me haha

What has been the worst moment of outreach? (PS. Aunt Pammy if you are reading this with Joey some of these things aren’t G rated…haha) I would say the many days of traveling by bus and train has blurred together to be one of the lowest points of outreach. Highlights of these days include: my friend Justin being smacked by a transvestite on a train from Bombay to Pune, me being kissed by a transvestite on the cheek, Justin having to bribe a custom’s official to enter Bangladesh, me puking in a bag on the bus ride to Bangladesh only to find out the bag had a whole in it and sitting there watching my puke slowly creep down the isle and on peoples feet…

p.s. I am currently trying to get rid of ring worm that has decided to make my left cheek its home...

Are you insane? Probably…so many times I just find my self laughing at loud because I found myself in the craziest situations that I could have never imagined